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A
Glance at the Mass e-Communication Service at CityU
By
Maria
Chin
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Mass
communication in the University is mostly
done electronically via the Electronic Broadcast
Service (EBS), news posted on the Staff
homepage and the Student homepage, news
posted in the University e-Portal, and Staff
Forum in the University e-Portal. Let us
take a look at them in turn:
- The
EBS makes use of the departmental mailing
lists that are updated daily from staff
and student enrollment data in AIMS. Each
department, office and unit owns an EBS
account for sending e-mail messages to
staff and/or students of all or selected
department(s).
- News
posted on the Staff homepage and the Student
homepage was introduced this February.
Departments maintain news items in their
departmental websites, which are harvested
daily and posted to the designated homepages.
As the Staff and Student homepages are
also the login pages to the University
e-Portal, they are ideal places for news
announcement.
-
In
the University e-Portal, each user
is known by his/her role as in AIMS,
thus providing the identity requirement
for role-based communications. News
and information in the e-Portal
is organized into tabs - Staff,
Student, and Alumni, and a user
will be able to access the tab(s)
corresponding to his/her role(s)
after logging in. The content in
each tab is maintained by the departments
concerned for currency and accuracy.
- The
Staff Forum in the e-Portal has two basic
communication tools - announcement and
discussion board. Announcement made via
a forum is displayed up front on the Staff
page, whereas discussion board facilitates
interactions within the forum by means
of topics and discussion threads. The
choice of tools depends on the communication
needs of the organizer.
The
EBS was developed to complement personal
e-mail as it remains popular amongst
staff and students since its inception
some ten years ago. News posted on
the homepages and the e-Portal is
gaining popularity from administrative
offices and support units. The Staff
Forum was introduced a few months
ago, and consideration for creating
a forum is on a case by case basis
upon understanding its purpose and
the appropriate tool recommended.
With
the anticipated growth in the University
population, the demand for effective
e-communication will rise. In order
to handle issues on message integrity
and content moderation, the Terms
of Service for Mass e-Communication
Services in the CityU (Beta Version)
is devised and put up under the 'Policies
and Regulations' submenu of the 'About
the CSC' menu on the CSC home page
(http://www.cityu.edu.hk/csc/)
for your reference. We will continue
to improve our e-communication service
to meet your needs.
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